


In the Future

by ami_ven



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: mcsheplets, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Have you ever thought where you’ll be in twenty years?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Future

**Author's Note:**

> written for LJ community "mcsheplets" prompt #056 "post-series"

John had had a feeling this was coming for a while now, but he hadn’t had any concrete proof until Keller’s transfer request arrived on his desk. He wasn’t surprised by it— since they’d established regular contact with the Milky Way, not to mention the four-plus months they’d been stranded on Earth so far, they’d gotten a few rotations of people who did well on Atlantis, who performed their duties and respected the different viewpoints of Pegasus natives, until it was time to rotate back home. For them, _Earth_ was home, at Atlantis was just a place to work.

And, as he’d suspected, Keller was one of those people.

John hadn’t seen Rodney at breakfast, and now he knew why. Rodney couldn’t leave Atlantis any more than John could— their brief exile when the Replicators had taken over had been painful for both of them— and maybe it was presumptuous of John, but he knew Rodney better than anyone, and he knew that Rodney wasn’t planning to leave.

For some reason, there was twice as much paperwork for sitting idly in San Francisco Bay as there had been for exploring potentially-hostile alien worlds, even including the more frequent personnel changes, and John abandoned it with half an hour still to go until lunch. He stopped by his quarters to grab a six-pack of beer and headed for the usual pier, where he figured Rodney would be.

Sure enough, he found the scientist sitting on the deck, staring out into the Pacific Ocean.

“Hey,” said John, in case Rodney hadn’t heard him open the door.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Rodney.

“Who said anything about talking?” John dropped down to sit beside him and popped open a beer. “I just came out here to drink. In silence.”

Rodney snorted and took a beer. “It’s eleven-thirty in the morning.”

They were quiet for a moment, listening to the waves hit the base of the pier below. The sea air was cool, and John could feel the heat from Rodney’s body, even with a few inches of space between them.

“I guess you got Jennifer’s paperwork,” said Rodney.

“Yeah,” said John.

“I knew she wasn’t going to leave Earth again,” said Rodney. “And she knew I wasn’t going to stay. These past few weeks, really, we’d both just been pretending and I… Honestly? I don’t think I’ve ever had a nicer break-up.”

“Rodney…”

“No, no, I mean it. Girls always say, _Oh, we’ll still be friends_ when they really mean _I hope I never see you again_. But Jennifer… she says she’ll come to Atlantis, to visit, after we get settled back in Pegasus, and I think I’ll be glad to see her, then.”

“Huh,” said John. “That’s good, right?”

“Yeah,” said Rodney, actually sounding happy.

“So, what’s with the drinking, then?” John asked.

Rodney snorted. “You brought the beer, Sheppard.”

“Because I thought you’d be…” He waved his half-empty can in a way that was supposed to mean _heartbroken, but in a manly way_. “And if you’re so okay with not dating Keller anymore, why are you even out here?”

“Ah,” said Rodney. “Well, Jennifer and I are now, as I said, friends. And as a friend, she asked me what I really wanted out of life.”

“Besides a Nobel Prize?”

Rodney managed a smile. “Yeah, besides that. Have you ever thought where you’ll be in twenty years?”

John hadn’t. He never gave the future much thought, usually, but Rodney was looking at him so intently, like John’s idea of the future really _mattered_ , that he had to try. “Well… Torren will be almost ready to graduate college by then. And, he might have a couple siblings by—”

“No, _you_ , Sheppard,” Rodney interrupted. 

“I… Here, I guess,” said John. “Atlantis. I’ll have put in enough time to retire, if I wanted to. I’ll have to stand down from off-world missions sooner than that, but they might let me stay on as CO.”

“They’d have to,” said Rodney, dismissive. “Nobody else knows Atlantis like you do—except me, of course.”

“Of course,” John repeated, laughing.

“But I meant _you_. Personally.”

“Personally? I…”

“Because I’ve had some time to think, now,” said Rodney, taking a long drink of beer. “And I can’t imagine a future here in Atlantis without you, Sheppard.”

“Well, yeah,” said John. “We’ll always be friends, McKay.”

“Friends, right.”

“Rodney?” John asked.

The scientist took another big gulp of beer. “I had no problem picturing a future without Jennifer. Without Atlantis, without physics, without… without a lot of things, actually. But not you, John.”

“ _Rodney_ …”

“I don’t mean— I mean, I’d _like_ to mean— but you don’t have to—”

John reached over to take his beer, and set both cans on the deck. “I want you to mean what you want to mean, Rodney.”

“I mean,” Rodney said, proving again that he was emotionally so much braver than John could ever be, “that in twenty years, I want to be with you, John. Wherever we are.”

“Sounds pretty good,” said John, and Rodney kissed him, laughing.

THE END


End file.
